


Close Your Eyes

by whiterabbit1613



Series: Twelve Days (2007) [12]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiterabbit1613/pseuds/whiterabbit1613
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wanted to end 12 Days with Saint and Riley, because I love them so much and I wanted at least one story to match the season. </p>
<p>Saint and Riley belong to me, and if you steal them I will hunt you down and whip you with a wet noodle.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to end 12 Days with Saint and Riley, because I love them so much and I wanted at least one story to match the season. 
> 
> Saint and Riley belong to me, and if you steal them I will hunt you down and whip you with a wet noodle.

The 12 Days of Christmas Day 12 : Close Your Eyes  
original fiction; mild saint/riley; friendship/romance  
  
     Life, Saint reflected, was a very funny thing.  
     In her case, she'd lived almost thirty years being single, confused and by turns either manic or depressed, completely irreligious and irreverent, and pretty much happy with being an outsider. None of this had prepared her for meeting Riley.  
     "I mean it," he was saying now, an urgent tone in his voice. "I hope you trust me enough by now to know I'm not going to punch you or something."  
     She carefully closed her eyes. She could hear him rustling slightly, over the sounds of her house at rest -- TV mutely humming in the background, the day's melt freezing again and the dirt cooling, the ice maker in the fridge clicking on, a light bulb getting ready to flare out in the bathroom, her electric toothbrush charging next to it. "Hold out your hands," Riley muttered. She did. Something settled into them. "You can open your eyes now."  
     It was a velvet bag, small and black and very knobbly in her grip. She pulled open the drawstring to peek inside, then upended it over her palm so its contents spilled out. They were tiny -- perhaps the smallest set she had ever seen, each no taller than her thumb -- but they were remarkably detailed for their size. "I carved them myself," Riley's slightly breathless voice was saying. "I meant to give them to you for Christmas, but I didn't finish in time, so... I thought they might be an appropriate gift for Epiphany."  
      _I didn't get you anything,_  her mind supplied as a rejoinder, but what came out of her mouth instead was "What made you think that?"  
     Riley faltered. She glanced up and saw that his face, so radiantly happy a moment ago, had fallen slightly. Saint wondered why that was such a good look on him, this crestfallen visage. She wondered why it was so easy to love him when he looked like that. If Saint believed in God, she'd have wanted him to be a lot like a crestfallen Riley. "You said you celebrated it," he finally said. "Now, I can understand a non-believer celebrating Christmas in a purely material spirit, but no one celebrates Epiphany anymore unless they have a special connection to it. And anyone who has that strong a feeling for Epiphany could do with a real nativity set."  
     Saint turned the figures over one by one in her hands: the baby Jesus, his manger, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and their sheep, and at last three wise men. The wise men were more of the Matthew persuasion than like the famous carol, wearing no crowns on their heads. (One was even brown, she noted with some satisfaction.) She squinted. Joseph looked rather suspiciously like Riley.   
     "My mother had a set when I was a girl that were made of wood, just like these. She'd set them up on the mantel, with the manger in the center, and the wise men at one end, and Mary and Joseph at the other. Mary and Joseph got closer and closer to the manger during the season of advent, and then on Christmas Day, I'd wake up and Jesus would be lying in his manger. And then the wise men moved closer and closer, until Epiphany. Three Kings Day. That was always a big party at my house." Saint fell silent. Riley just looked at her, until she finally looked at him. "I baked King's Cake, if you want some."  
     Riley knew a lot of things. He was a smart man, after all. He knew how to speak five languages, he could do calculus, he could cook risotto. He also knew that Saint never apologized, at least not with words. Her apologies couldn't be heard unless you knew how to listen for them. Riley knew.  
     "I'd love some," he said lightly.   
     Later that night, Riley sat on his bed in the rectory and turned the last figure over in the palm of his hand. It was the same size as the others, but made of a blonder wood, so that it almost glowed even in the dim light of his room. It was obvious, even to the most casual observer, who the angel was modeled after, which was why Riley had kept it for himself. He set Saint on his bedside table, lay down.  
     Riley closed his eyes, and smiled.


End file.
